Originally published by Hadi Partovi on LinkedIn: Girls set AP Computer Science record…skyrocketing growth outpaces boys

Ten years ago, just 2,600 female students took the AP Computer Science Exam.

Fast forward to 2017. Over 29,000 female students took an AP CS exam this year, which is more than the entire AP CS exam participation in 2013 when Code.org launched. Though computer science has seen sustained growth year after year, the introduction of AP CS Principles this past school year was the largest College Board AP exam launch in history, and has skyrocketed participation in CS especially among female students and minorities.

The growth among female students has been incredible, increasing participation in AP CS exams by 135% since 2016. Not to be outdone, underrepresented minorities have increased participation by nearly 170% over last year!

Participation by girls and minorities outpaces the rest

We’ve seen steady improvement in the diversity of AP Computer Science in the four years since since Code.org was launched in 2013, thanks to the collaboration of many partners and the dedicated effort of thousands of computer science teachers. While participation in AP Computer Science is growing as a whole, the greatest gains are among female students and underrepresented minorities, whose representation among exam-takers is increasing each year.

Racial diversity in Code.org’s AP Computer Science classrooms exceeds the nation’s average, because of our work in urban schools. While we’re not ready to report aggregate statistics for Code.org’s partner schools, the results we’ve seen from school districts using Code.org are incredible. For example, in Broward County Public Schools, FL, more African American students took AP computer science exams this year than in the entire state of Florida last year, and a significantly higher percentage received a passing grade. Broward County Public Schools also saw record participation by Latinx students, whose participation in AP computer science more than tripled since last year.

Because 70% of students in Code.org CS Principles classrooms indicate they want to pursue computer science after graduation, we are optimistic that these gains will have a downstream impact on diversity in tech at the university and workforce level.

We still have a long, long way to go

Participation in AP Computer Science is still far from balanced — female students still account for only 27% of all students taking AP Computer Science exams and underrepresented minorities make up just 20%. This problem continues through to higher education, where 83% of university computer science majors are men, and into the workforce as well.